"That's me right there with the grouchy face," Joe Modzelewski said, pointing to a yellowing newspaper photo of a scowling 12-year-old in a group photo under the heading "Little League Tournament Team."

The photo is included in Modzelewski's scrapbook with box scores and game articles, cut and pasted to chronicle the 1955 season, when he was 13 years old and threw the first no-hitter in the history of Agawam Little League for the Foodmart Aces, one of four teams in town.

The front cover of the book still has half a Little League Baseball logo stuck to a piece of paper that is taped together. A fire at his childhood home destroyed the piles of 45" records he collected, but the scrapbook made it.

In the mid-1950's, when Little League baseball was young in Western Mass., it was the only game in town come spring. In Agawam and other Western Mass. communities, kids traded in their basketball sneakers for gloves and cleats once the weather got warm. There was no choice, no discussion, that's just the way it was.

Today, obviously, that is no longer the case. Kids have more sports available to them at increasingly younger ages, and if they want to play soccer, lacrosse or basketball year-round, they have options to do that too.

But that doesn't mean baseball will recede to the yellowing pages of scrapbooks and out of the American consciousness.

This summer, as Little League celebrates its 75th anniversary since Pennsylvania lumberyard clerk Carl Stotz tripped over a lilac bush and started an organized league, ESPN enters the first year of its new eight-year $60 million contract with Little League International to broadcast the organization's annual World Series in Williamsport, Pa.

In fact, if you ask some of the old-timers in the area, baseball's connection to the past is part of what makes it valuable, not an indication it will become obsolete.

The heyday

When Stan Ziomek was growing up in Amherst in the 1930s, Little League did not exist, and even in high school, the only options open to students were basketball and football.

"There was no baseball to speak of at the high school in Amherst until the early 40s, because they had no field," Ziomek said.

"As kids, after the hay fields were mown, we could do whatever we wanted in those hay fields, so we set up bases and tried to play baseball."

In the 1950s, things had changed. There were new fields at new elementary and high schools, plus those at the local colleges. Money was flowing a little more freely through the U.S. economy after World War II, and Little League was expanding quickly through the country.

Amherst Police Chief Paul Jewett wanted to start a Little League to keep kids out of trouble. Ziomek, with help from other community members, organized a four-team league in 1952 and ran youth baseball in town for six decades, until he stepped down 2012.

Around the same time the Amherst league was formed, others were sprouting all over Western Mass. – in Holyoke, Westfield, Longmeadow, Northampton and elsewhere.

In Agawam, Joe Mozdelewski started playing Little League when he was about 10 years old. As a 13-year-old, on Aug. 2, 1955 – he no-hit the Deloghia Jets in a 10-0 victory.

"I think at that age I might have not really realized it until everybody jumped all over me and the fans jumped out of the stands to congratulate me. Then I realized I had done something," Mozdelewski said.

The popularity of the Amherst leagues took off, peaking, Ziomek guessed, around the 1960's or 1970's.

"Everybody had to get into Little League. They had uniforms, and it looked like the pros," Ziomek said.

Mozdelewski remembered the appeal of real uniforms, cleats, and hats, and the rituals he went through before the season started.

"You'd get a glass and turn the rim of the hat and put it in the glass. You had to have a curved, you couldn't have it straight or you were a nerd," he joked.

Connecting the past

After decades of prosperity in Amherst, participation numbers started to flag, and Ziomek noticed fewer volunteers each season. At its peak, there were about a dozen teams in the league in the 1960's and 1970's, today there are five, as young athletes interests have spread out into sports like Ultimate Frisbee, lacrosse and soccer.

Decades from now, old friends may get together to trade stories from the old Ultimate Frisbee days, but today, baseball seems to be the game that connects generations to the past. The lessons – getting down on a groundball on the infield, taking an outside pitch to the opposite field at the plate – are being taught the same way today as they were in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.

Most importantly, playing sports gives kids a way to create a bond that can last through their whole lives, Ziomek said.

"I don't care what sport you play, there's a certain amount of teamwork and relationship between the kids playing," Ziomek said.

"I see that in town, some of the kids that played forty years ago, that relationship is still there. They remember each other."

Joe Mozdelewski and his brother Eddie are living examples of that lesson. To this day, they still meet up with the same group of friends every month or so to share football and baseball stories.

"We get about 18 or 20 guys to talk about the same things, relive the old days. We've got a lot of good friends in this town. I'm a lifelong resident; I've been here all my life," Mozdelewski said.

To him, the ritual strengthens the connection he built with the town he's called home his entire life.

"I'll never leave Agawam," Mozdelewski said. "I don't care where, to me it's the best town in the world. I'll be here forever."